Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This section discusses the background of the study, the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the significance of the study, the scope and limitation, and the definition of key words.

1.1 Background of the Study

There are four skills in English, such as, listening, speaking, reading, and writing which are of the equal importance of their function in communication. Communication may be conducted in spoken form, which involves speaking and listening, or in the written form, which involves the activity of writing and reading. Writing is commonly considered as the most difficult skill to master among the four language skills. Writing is defined as skill or power to express ideas, thoughts, and feeling to other people in written symbols to make other people or readers understand the ideas conveyed . Cook 2004:1 says that “one of the most challenging aspects of writing is finding something to write about”. Brown 2007:391 defines writing as written product as a result of thinking, drafting, and revising procedures that require specialized skills, skills that not every speaker develops naturally. Cabrera 2002:5 states that in primary and secondary schools, EFL students progress from writing isolated words and phrases, to short paragraphs about themselves or about very familiar topics family, home, hobbies, friends, food, etc.. Many students at this level are not capable both linguistically and intellectually of creating a piece of written text in limited time. At this stage, the students‟ work will invariably contain mistake. It makes the readers can not understand about their writing. Concerning the definition of writing, Ploeger in Poppy, 2008 states : “Writing is one of those skills that many people especially students, feel should be done easily and quickly, without extended thought or effort to write well, however, can be difficult, even for professionals who write everyday. Learning to write, communicate your idea clearly and fully, in an interesting and grammatically correct way-takes time, effort, and concentration” In spite of the fact that writing is usually considered difficult, people cannot argue that the work of writing is very important, especially the English writing. Some importance of the work of writing has been proposed by Menning and Welkinson in Marliasari, 2009 that writing is important because it 1 overcomes the distance between the writer and the reader, 2 overcomes the problem of time differences, 3 enables someone to participate in the development of science and technology, and 4 can be a means to judge the ability and skills of its writer. Weigle 2002:1 has ensured that writing has also become more important as tenets of communicative language teaching - that is, teaching language as a system of communication rather than as an object of study – in both second and foreign language settings. In EFL, learning to write involves learning a specialized version of a language already known by the students. Hedge 2000:300 states that methodology for teaching of writing in ELT classrooms made dramatic departures from traditional approaches. In practice, it is difficult to assess the extent to which teachers, set about by pressures of time and assessment, have been able to incorporate recent ideas into their pedagogy, but the ideas are available. Hegde 2000:301, further explains “…..as a result of various pressures of time and the need to cover the syllabus, writing is often relegated to homework and takes place in unsupported conditions of learning. The danger in these circumstances is that poorer writers struggle alone and the experience confirm them in their perception of themselves as failing writers”. In relation to the significance of writing, Richards in Devi, 2009, states: “Increasingly writing is becoming the major International language of printed information. A great deal of the world‟s scientific, commercial, economic, and technological knowledge is written in English, through the writer maybe Chinese, Swedes, or Italian. Publication in English ensures the widest possible readership for new finding and ideas”. The work of writing is presented in the form of text. There is a distinction of the text types usually known as genre, which is related to the purpose of each type. Since the present study involves Senior High School students, the researcher will refer to the text types proposed in the 2006 National Standard of Competencies for Senior High School. The text types are analytical exposition, descriptive, discussion, explanation, hortatory exposition, narrative, news item, procedure, recount, report, and review. The distribution of the teaching of the texts is elaborated as follows; Table 1.1 Distribution in the 2006 National Standard of Competencies for Senior High School Semester Grade I II X Recount Narrative Procedure Report Narrative Procedure Report News Item XI Descriptive Narrative Analytical exposition Descriptive Narrative Hortatory exposition XII Narrative Explanation Review Narrative Discussion Explanation Depdiknas, 2006 Exposition is one of the essay types proposed in the 2006 National Standard of Competencies for Senior High School. There are two types of exposition; analytical and hortatory exposition. The purpose of analytical exposition is to expose and persuade audience readerlistener that there is a case need to be concerned Depdiknas, 2004 : 62. Meanwhile, the purpose of hortatory exposition is to expose and persuade the audience readerlistener that something should or should not be the case Depdiknas, 2004, 64. The difference of the two types of exposition is that recommendation is attached to the later on. This study focuses on the writing of analytical exposition. There are some techniques in writing such as free writing, clustering, making list, and cubing. One particular technique implemented to the study is clustering. Clustering is used to help student generating their ideas spontaneously and avoid sudden jump. Based on the background, this study focuses on a study of clustering technique used by the eleventh grade students in writing analytical exposition text at MA Sunan Giri Pasuruan.

1.2 Statement of the Problems